Whiting School of Engineering, Johns Hopkins University




JHU Department of Mechanical Engineering

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Biomechanics Concentration

A student may specialize in Biomechanics once a solid background in the fundamentals of Mechanical Engineering has been developed through the core Mechanical Enginering or Engineering Mechanics courses. The essence of mechanics is the interplay between forces and motion. In biology, mechanics is important at the macroscopic, cellular, and subcellular levels. 

At the macroscopic length scale biomechanics of both soft and hard tissues plays an important role in computer-integrated surgical systems and technologies, e.g., medical robotics. At the cellular level, issues such as cell motility and chemotaxis can be modeled as mechanical phenomena. At the subcellular level, conformational transitions in biological macromolecules can be modeled using molecular dynamics simulation, which is nothing more than computational Newtonian mechanics; statistical mechanics, or using coarse-grained techniques that rely on principles from the mechanics of materials. 

In addition, much of structural biology can be viewed from the perspective of Kinematics, e.g., finding spatial relationships in data from the Protein Data Bank. Each student who pursues the Biomechanics concentration will, in consultation with his or her academic advisor, choose the set of Technical and Mechanical Engnieering course electives that best matches the student's interests.

Many electives from other departments around campus are acceptable. Students pursuing the Biomechanics Concentration are required to take at least four of the following courses (which can be counted toward the Mechanical Engineering elective and Technical elective requirements):

Details about these courses are available in the University's Arts and Sciences and Engnieering Course Catalog. For additional information about the concentration, contact Professor Sean Sun at ssun@jhu.edu.

Biomechanics Faculty in the Mechanical Engineering Department